Changes planned by New Zealand's coalition government to increase the minimum wage to $20 over three years will present challenges for the small and medium-size business (SMB) sector. Extra financial pressure means SMBs need to identify funding sources to absorb the change—but simply passing costs onto customers risks lost sales, decreased revenues, and a weakened competitive position that may ultimately jeopardise the existence of many companies.

SMBs can offset these significant future stresses by making smart investments in technology today. A great example is SuiteCRM—a cloud app that increases profitability, saves time and money, and ultimately empowers businesses with tools to weather the incoming headwinds.

SuiteCRM's core focus is on nurturing and enhancing businesses' relationships with their customers. It achieves this through making the customer support experience as seamless as possible—resulting in improved customer support quality. Happier customers are far more likely to remain loyal to your business, leading to recurring income streams and fresh sales leads through positive word-of-mouth. SuiteCRM also helps business growth through enabling new customer opportunities—from creating beautiful email marketing campaigns, to capitalising on sales and support trends with powerful reporting tools.

As well as customer-centric features, SuiteCRM can radically improve your internal business processes—saving real time and money. In SuiteCRM, teams spread across sales, support, marketing, and management have the same shared view of customer data—such as contact information, support cases, and sales correspondence—updated automatically and instantly. This reduces inefficient double-handling of tasks, and ensures complete accuracy of information across the entire business. No more managing paper notes or Excel spreadsheets; in SuiteCRM, the most accurate data is available at all times in a single central location. SuiteCRM can also automate many business processes, transforming tedious manual steps into streamlined, consistent workflows.

SuiteCRM's cloud-based nature enables exciting scenarios for remote working. Plant costs and rent for physical office space are significant business expenses, and it's not unusual for employees to spend up to two hours daily commuting to and from an office location; time spent sitting in traffic is time taken away from business productivity. With SuiteCRM, employees only need a web browser to be empowered with the data required to effectively support and sell to customers. The cost savings of a remote work scheme cannot be overstated—especially in light of the minimum wage increase—and SuiteCRM can play a pivotal part in making it a success.

Setting up your business for future prosperity needn't cost a fortune. Thanks to open source, the same enterprise-grade technology used by the big companies is available to you for an incredibly low cost. The critical point is to plan and act now—not three years deep into the minimum wage increase. With a free trial of SuiteCRM available, it's the perfect time to take action.